It’s awkward; laying everything out on the table feels like willingly drowning yourself. “I feel,” I have to swallow before adding, “If I had known…” My head is teeming with thoughts and I can barely focus on a single one. For three years I rehearsed every conversation in my head I wanted to have with this man, and in all of them, he never cared. So to sit here and see how much he does… I’m struggling. It’s all too much, and I can feel myself slipping backward.
I refuse to go back to who I used to be.
“Would it have made a difference?” Madox asks in a low tone, pushing his plate to the side and bringing his hand to rest on top of mine.
“Would what have?” I ask him, feeling a wave of emotional exhaustion. I love this man. That was never a question. And that’s what makes it hurt the most. Even after all these years I still love him. I loved him back then and it wasn’t enough though. Love isn’t always enough.
“If you’d known that I was asking about you, would you have come back for me?”
“Not at first, no. I was scared and I needed to find myself after what happened with my parents that week.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
He doesn’t hesitate to ask me another question, and I don’t hesitate to answer.
“Did you miss me?”
“Of course I did. You have no idea.” My voice is choked when I tell him, “Some days just to feel okay I would pretend you were holding me.” I remember what it felt like back then, to be so alone in the spare room of Trish’s apartment, crying on the bed. Letting every bit of me break. I knew if I went back, Madox would hold me and take away the pain. But then he’d eventually let me go, and I wouldn’t know what to do with myself because the only identity I had was to be his. His burden.
I want to brush the tear from my eye before it can fall, but I refuse to let go of his hands right now. Not with the way his warm touch reminds me how life has changed, and I’m not in the same position I once was. At least I can stand on my own now. This is the first time I can sit in front of him and say that much.
“I remember what you said the night before you left when I found you at your place… about being more than a dirty fuck,” Madox starts to speak after a moment of silence.
I cut him off before he can continue. “I don’t think I meant half of what I said, Madox.” I feel awful inside, desperately wanting to avoid going back to that night and how everything happened. I don’t want to go back. It hurts too much. I can’t go back.
“It meant something though. Even in our lies there’s some truth, and it took me a while to understand why you said that. It was never just sex with you, Soph. You felt that way, didn’t you? You thought I only wanted you for sex?” I can only nod, admitting how little I thought of myself back then. I was willing to stay with him, hoping one day he’d want more. Hoping one day he’d realize how much I loved him and tell me that I was worth loving back. Worth loving even when I wasn’t in bed with him.
Every night I’ve been alone taunts me in this moment. Seeing how much he cares, when for years I convinced myself he didn’t, all so I could learn to get better on my own.
“Why didn’t you–” I want to ask him about the text he never answered before I took off as I pull my hands away, grabbing my napkin and wiping away the tears as delicately as I can, but I can’t finish my sentence.
Another minute passes and the energy in the air becomes suffocating until Madox speaks.
“I didn’t have to run away to figure out who I was. I know who I am, and I don’t like that person without you.”
It fucking kills me to hear him say that. I can’t stand to hear him say that.
“Madox,” I cry his name. I’m doing my best to hold it together, but it’s fucking impossible. There’s no armor left to hide behind and without it, I can’t even breathe.
“My biggest regret though… is that I wish I’d talked to Brett before seeing you that night. He knew what happened to your parents and if I’d known, that night wouldn’t have happened the way it did. I would have been better for you. I didn’t know they’d died. If I’d known about the accident, I wouldn’t have taken you out back to the alley, thinking that’s what you wanted. I would have been able to keep you if I’d known. I wouldn’t have messed up.”